Crack user says she witnessed murder from under bed

Published 6:22 pm, Thursday, September 23, 2010

It had been a good morning for Rosemarie Wood, a homeless San Antonio resident who occasionally prostituted herself for crack cocaine, when Conrad Chapman found her sitting on the steps of an abandoned East Side home, she told jurors Thursday.

She had shared her drugs with Chapman in the past when he had nothing, and now he wanted to return the favor.

?Remember, I told you if I ever hit a lick I'd share it with you,? she recalled him saying before he rented them a room at a downtown Days Inn and they began to ?party.?

But hours later, Wood would end up diving under the motel room bed, she said from the witness stand as testimony continued in the murder trial of Flanzo Townes. She was the sole witness, she said, as the defendant shot Chapman multiple times, killing him.

Townes, 33, could face up to life in prison if found guilty of the Oct. 20, 2008, slaying.

After a knock on the door and seeing a gun emerge from behind it, Wood said she ?was under the bed in a heartbeat.? From there, Wood said she heard fighting and gunshots, and the defendant yelling, ?Where's my money?? Moments later, she said, Chapman fell to his knees, entering her field of vision.

?He said, ?Please, I don't have any money,'? she recalled, explaining that she closed her eyes as more gunfire erupted.

Wood, who had a shaved head and wore blue jail scrubs, quietly cried as prosecutors showed her a crime scene photo of Chapman. His family, sitting across from her in the 226th state District Court, also wept.

Defense attorney Ed Shaughnessy suggested Chapman was the aggressor that night. ?Hitting a lick? can be slang for committing a robbery.

Wood, however, said the term can have several meanings and she didn't ask her friend to clarify.

Shaughnessy also pointed out that Chapman had gunshot residue on his hands.

?The first gunshots that were fired, you don't know who was firing them, so the possibility exists Mr. Chapman might have fired them,? he said. Wood agreed.